VW crashing consistently during bootup

[Jason Byron Teague]

Hello,

I'm having a bit of trouble getting VW to behave. I read a post from a while back in which someone asked whether it was safe to uninstall the old versions (9.0.1 and 9.5) when upgrading to 9.5.1. The post suggested that it is indeed safe to uninstall the old versions. Well, I tried this first using the VW uninstall wizard. I removed everything except Spotlight 9.5.1 powerpack, VW viewer, and Renderworks 9. After doing so, VW would no longer start on the machine. I tried a repair and a clean reinstall of all the software, but I still get the same results--VW crashes while it's trying to boot up. I then removed all the VW software and reinstalled Win ME on my machine. After reinstalling windows, I tried to reinstall just 9.0.1. It still crashed during boot up. So then I made sure everything on my hard drive was backed up and tried reformatting. This time I reinstalled all the VW software including 9.5.1, powerpack, and renderworks. It ran fine. But I still had to figure out how to get the old directories off the machine. So I tried that from the Add/Remove Programs tool in windows' control panel. Back to square one. The results have been the same. I've been through the whole routine again. Before I reformat my hard drive again, I'd like to know more about the VW uninstall sequence and what I could be missing that would solve the problem. If it were simply a missing system file, a windows reinstall should take care of that. What the heck is going on with my machine? I'm not even sure I understand completely why each successive upgrade doesn't reinstall to the same directory. Or at least, why isn't a detailed set of "clean up" instructions included in a readme with each upgrade? I'm sure there are good reasons, but someone has to ask the question. I'm baffled. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Jason Teague

[Guest]

Jason,

To remove previous versions of VW from your computer, go to the Control Panel. Select Add/Remove programs. Select the various products you want to remove, one at a time. Then go to the folders they are installed in - probably at c:\Program Files\ and move the folders to the trashcan.

If you happened to install of these into the same folder and remove the folders, you are certainly going to have some problems when starting the application. All the versions should be installed to thier very own folders.

[Jason Byron Teague]

Katie,

Thanks for your advice. I had done exactly what you suggested in every attempt. Over the weekend, I discovered something unusual. By disabling something in windows called "desk98" before booting VW, I was able to get v9.5.1 to go through its entire startup sequence. I was able to use the program with no problems. I then restarted the machine--which restarted desk98, and VW was able to boot without a problem. However, I have noticed some strange crashing problems when I try to do certain things while desk98 is running. By shutting down desk98, I am able to either continue working in VW or close and restart VW without restarting the machine. I don't know if other users of WinMe have had a similar experience, but I thought I'd report what I've discovered. I don't know enough about the OS to know what this indicates, but I'm looking into it. Thanks again!

JB Teague

[Guest]

The desk 98 is part of Hydrovision which is a utility for your video driver. I am pretty sure you don't need it to utilize your video card. If you want to set the utility to never start up when your computer starts up, you can edit it from the msconfig file. Go to the Start menu. Type in msconfig and hit enter.If you click on the Startup Tab you should see a list of programs and processes that start up when you boot your computer. This slows down the computer, uses resources that you might not need to be using, and slows down booting up the computer. This doesn't remove the program from your computer, only prevents it from starting automatically when you start up your computer. I recommend to turn off anything that you don't need such as Real Player, CD burner software, LimeWire or something liek that that you do not need to run all the time. You can simply turn it off here by removing the checkmark in the box next to the program or process and then restart the computer. Any time you need to use anything you've turned off, you can start it from teh start menu or it's folder. If you have alot of stuff checked, you could do yourself some good as far as general system performace goes with memory and resource management as well as overall speed by turning them off.

It seems there is a conflict of some sort that is happening when the desk98 is running wiht VW. I would suggest turning it off all the time, just to save the headache, since you probably dont even need the utility.